I still have a Nakamichi in storage

Another consumer deck I loved was made by Philips, who I once read "invented the tape deck"

I still have a Sony portable line level deck and powered stealth mics, too, for live taping. Concerts are way too expensive these days, though

Heck I still have a HHB CDR850 for converting from analog to digital

I gave away my Digi001

I still have 100 or so tapes, I gave away the rest

I remember buying 100s of Maxell XLIIs, Tower Records became the goto source

I'm not sure I have the ears anymore to notice the improvements, if any, of modern equipment over "vintage"

But most music produced today sounds like crap to me anyway. Too loud